


Advent Tales 2014

by WonderstruckGuardian



Series: Candle, Candle, Burning Bright [3]
Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012), Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Fluff and Crack, Friendship, Gen, Humor, Time Shenanigans, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-26
Updated: 2020-02-05
Packaged: 2021-02-27 12:09:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22426852
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WonderstruckGuardian/pseuds/WonderstruckGuardian
Summary: It is December 2014, and school districts are closing for winter break. In Burgess, Pennsylvania, Jamie Bennett and Jack Frost are helping Jamie's mom clean up the Bennett's attic. They are soon faced with a number of problems when a time portal forms on one of the attic walls. How will they get rid of it? More importantly, how are they going to return the random daggers, rocks, helmets, and kitchen utensils that have been flung out of the portal back to their proper times?
Relationships: Jack Frost & Jamie Bennett
Series: Candle, Candle, Burning Bright [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1623967
Kudos: 7





	1. Wonders of the Ancient World

**Author's Note:**

> I finally decided to cross-post this story here (it can also be found on FFN.) I would recommend reading Advent Tales 2012 and 2013 before reading this installment, but that's not absolutely necessary... 
> 
> The Advent poem is not mine.
> 
> As always, I hope you enjoy!  
> WonderstruckGuardian

**_Candle, candle, burning bright,_** ******_share with us your golden light;_**

 **_The First light of Advent is the light of stones,_**  
 ** _stones that make crystals, seashells, and our bones;_** ****

_The Second light of Advent is the light of plants,  
_ ** _green plants that grow, and seed,_** ** _and in the breezes dance;_** ****

**_The Third light of Advent is for animals of the Earth,_**   
**_great and small, steadily they live,_** **_and bring the soul to birth;_** ****

**_The Fourth light of Advent is the light of Humanity,_**   
**_those who can choose to bring goodness_** **_to every living thing._** ****

* * *

**_Time: 3:18pm_ **

**_Location: Jamie’s Attic_ **

It was the holiday season once again, and Jack Frost had made sure to bring extra snow to Burgess, Pennsylvania. It would be Christmas Eve in a couple of days. Everything that could be decorated was, and the whole town seemed to delight in the festive spirit. However, four issues still remained to be dealt with by the Bennett family, issues that Jamie, Sophie and their mother Diane weren't entirely sure how to approach.

Issue #1: There was another time portal in their attic. It was the ninth portal so far; they'd been starting to appearing more and more frequently since October.

Issue #2: A medieval knight's helmet had somehow gotten sucked into the portal, and had then been ejected into the Bennett’s attic with the force of a cannon ball.

Issue #3: More objects had come flying out of the portal, including a strange glass dagger, half of a spear, and a medium sized volcanic rock. After the volcanic rock almost hit Jamie’s head and proceeded to smash a very old china tea set, Diane made sure Sophie was no longer allowed up into the attic.

The fourth and final issue was that unlike the other eight time portals, this newest one wasn't going away after a few hours. Jack Frost and Diane were currently standing side by side in the attic, contemplating how to get rid of this particular time portal. It looked like a shimmering mirage on the wall.

"The last time I was in your attic," Jack muttered to his only adult believer, "a portal basically ate your Christmas tree, unleashed a flood of wrongly colored candy corn, and rained Bornean frogs from the ceiling for a week. The time before that- Well, you know how disastrous that was. I don't need to tell you I dislike your attic. It's tried to injure me too many times."

"I'm sure it was all the _attic’s_ fault for hurting you," Jamie said, coming up the attic ladder to join Jack and Diane.

Jack shrugged, as if still placing most of the blame on the attic for his previous injuries. 

A crate of empty milk cartons dangerously close to portal suddenly diverted his attention then. All of the bottles bore a label for "Winter Dairy Farms _”_.

Jamie’s mom gestured at the box Jack was looking at. "That was my grandfather's, Jack. He was a milkman for Burgess in the 1930s. Oh, I just remembered I need to get Sophie to her play date, so, I'll be back soon. Then we can figure out how to get rid of it." She pointed at the portal, then climbed down the ladder to the kitchen.

A few seconds later, there was a faint jingle of keys, and the sound of the front door being opened, then shut. It was suddenly very quiet, and Jack didn't like it. Whenever one of the time portals appeared, it always felt like something, or someone, was observing them. Like the portal was a window through which somebody could secretly watch someone else.

The time portal shimmered suddenly, and a silver-colored projectile flew into the room. Jamie ducked, knocking over some boxes in the process and spilling their contents all over the floor, as the silver thing shot over his head, ramming itself forcefully into the wall behind him. Eyes widening in surprise, the 12 year-old slowly straightened up and cautiously walked toward the object.

"It's a spatula," he announced, prying the kitchen utensil out of the wall and completely ignoring the elongated indent it left there. Jamie briefly inspected the oddly migrant kitchen utensil again, and was about to start picking up some of the boxes he had just knocked over until he noticed that Jack staring in shock at an large ancient-looking book in his hands.

"This is still around?" Jack exclaimed. He ran his right hand reverently over the front cover of the book.

"Yes, the ‘Annoying Bennett Family Tree Book That Injuries Literally Everyone It Touches’ is still here. Impossible to get rid of, I've tried. It's definitely enchanted. Hey, can you help me pick up these magazines so we can get back to the issue of the time portal? Please?" Jamie said.

Just then, with a loud ' _CRACK_ ', a flaming arrow burst out of the portal and shot across the attic towards Jack. He raised the book up to shield his face, and the flaming arrow disappeared into the book's back cover, which rippled like water for a few moments before going still.

Jamie stared at it, shocked.

Jack lowered the family tree book, turning it around cautiously in his hands. "Did the arrow just disappear into the..." he began, and Jamie nodded.

Jack dropped the book on a pile of folded sheets next to him and muttered, "Well that was unexpected.”

"I guess the book’s more magical then we thought..." Forgetting about the magazines, Jamie began to examine the spatula again. "Just when I thought we might get a break from these portals. I thought they’d actually stopped showing up for awhile there," he said, tossing the spatula back into the portal, "But apparently the universe likes messing with me.”

"Wait!” Jack said as the spatula disappeared through the shimmering time barrier. "We don't know what time period it will end up in. What if it knocks out Leonardo da Vinci in the middle of painting the Mona Lisa and that messes up the painting, and suddenly we don’t have the Mona Lisa anymore? I mean, even if Da Vinci was fine, and he did try to paint it a second time, it wouldn’t be the same one as now."

"Well if you want to go back to the Renaissance and get the spatula…" Jamie huffed with exasperation. But Jack did have a good point. Would they actually have to go tell Father Time that Jamie had made Leonardo da Vinci mess up the Mona Lisa because he had accidentally thrown a spatula at him, due to the fact that the believer was really tired of time portals appearing in his attic and had therefore tossed the kitchen utensil back into the portal without indicating where said spatula should be sent?

A smile was slowly forming on Jack's face. "Come on, Jamie, where's your sense of fun,” The spirit asked, “It'll be awesome! If I'm going, you're going with me. We'll come back with hundreds of tales to tell. Just because you woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning doesn’t mean you have to stay that way."

"Sure.” Jamie looked down, suddenly finding the grain of worn floorboards immensely interesting. He heard Jack walking towards him, and then the winter spirit squatted down in front him.

“You ok?” Jack asked. Jamie nodded, but it was unenthusiastic. The last time they’d gone though a portal in Jamie’s attic, well, sometimes Jamie thought he would never fully recover from that.

It was NOT as fun as one might think to accidentally appear in the middle of a druid ritual and gain magical powers related to nature because of that, and then go through another portal only to get caught in the middle of a gladiator battle in the Roman Colosseum and then—

Without warning, Jack grabbed his wary believer’s arm and pulled him into the time portal. Jamie's last thought before the attic disappeared from sight was, _'Good thing it's winter break_.' At least getting lost in time was, if he dared to admit it, much more exciting than cleaning out the attic again, and getting ride of another portal. He just wasn't one of those 'sitting around doing nothing is totally awesome!' types of people, AND he had finished his schoolwork days ago.

Streaks of gold, red, green, and blue, and hazy outlines of objects that felt somewhat familiar began to whirl around them in a dizzying vortex, warping time and space (and Jamie's attic) apart until there was nothing left, except a distant light. Jamie looked over at Jack with his mouth agape, to check what the other's reaction was...but the winter spirit had disappeared! A spike of fear shot through the 12 year-old as he saw the distant light coming closer, and he couldn't see Jack anywhere. "JACK!" He tried to shout, but strangely, the sound never reached his ears. There was no air for it to travel though.

Great swaths of color rushed past him, and he saw that they were actually nebulas and galaxies, all of them stretched out across time like threads woven into a fabric. Mostly though, there was an empty blackness.

It was the space between the stars.

The distant light, faint blue in color, was coming closer and closer with every passing moment, all the other colors and shapes disappearing behind him. The outline of an elongated object, possibly a ship's oar, came flying straight at him from out of the blue light. He didn't remember if that was the reason he ended up unconscious, or if it was actually his rather hard impact with the ground at the end of the portal.

He only remembered being enveloped by the blue light, and then something painful clocked him in the head, and he lost consciousness.

**_Time: Unknown...Location: Unknown_ **

The first thing that Jamie became aware of was the smell of flowers. The sweet fragrance lulled him towards sleep. He never got there though, as he was jolted awake by cool water being poured over his head. Jamie, sputtering, lurched upright and hastily wiped water from his eyes. He blinked in the bright sunlight, and found two girls who appeared to be his age standing in front of him, staring curiously at him. One girl giggled softly behind her hand. Beside Jamie, Jack was holding a small clay pot in one of his hands. The pot was decorated with gold and black designs, and beads of water were dripping down its sides.

Jamie looked over the Guardian's shoulder, and his jaw dropped when he saw one of the Seven Wonders of the ancient world: the hanging gardens of Babylon. Many terraces with cascading greenery rose high above them.

The girls were wearing white tunics, and their thick black hair hung to their waists in braids. One of the girls wore a golden cuff on her slender wrist, on which was an engraving of a dragon. Remembering that dragons were a symbol of the chief god of Babylonia, Jamie was glad he was wearing a t-shirt with a dragon on it.

Soon, he and Jack were following the girls through an archway on one side of the terraces. They entered a shadowed corridor, which seemed to stretch endlessly before them. The sound of massive stone water wheels turning surrounded them, growing louder with each step they took.

Suddenly, the corridor came to an abrupt end, and Jamie would have walked right into the stone wall had Jack not grabbed his shoulder and pulled him back in time. The girls however, seemed to have no trouble finding their way through the pitch dark.

"I wonder where they're taking us," Jack whispered cautiously. He sensed some kind of barrier in their way.

"And why? " Jamie whispered back.

There was the sound of grinding stones, and then a crack of light appeared in front of them through what Jack assumed to be a wall. The crack grew larger, widening into a doorway. They all squinted in the bright light, which emanated from the hundreds of brilliant, pulsing crystals that made up the walls of a huge cavern. Mesmerized, Jack and Jamie were led into the cave by the girls. Walking deeper into the cave, they were awed by the glowing crystals that became all the colors of the rainbow as they pulsed. The cave dramatically opened into a vast sphere. Their walkway became a bridge across a brilliant abyss of multi-colored crystals.

In the center of the bridge, the girls stopped. The one with the golden dragon bracelet held her left hand over the abyss and sang five high, clear notes. A crack resounded sharply through the cavern, and two small crystals flew up from the abyss into her palm, which she then gave to Jack and Jamie. As soon as the crystals touched their hands, a warm breeze whistled through the cavern, gently whisking Jack and Jamie into another time portal. The girl's melody followed them all the way through time, until they arrived at their next destination.


	2. A Twig Named Twig and Other Strange Plant Life

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well...things happened...and Jack and Jamie quickly ended up going to very different places in time and space than I originally planned...
> 
> **As mentioned briefly in the previous chapter, Jamie has acquired a few minor healing and nature-related magical powers due to past time travel/time portal wackiness.

**_[Time: Unknown...Location: Atlantis]_ **

Jamie inhaled dust as he opened his eyes, quickly pushing himself into a sitting position in surprise. It was so...quiet. He could hear the chirping of birds in the distance. Jack lay sprawled out beside him, unconscious. _'It'd be really easy to get him back for Babylon now,_ ' Jamie thought. _'But... I guess I'll save that for later.'_

Getting to his feet, Jamie took in their new surroundings. Instead of the crystal cavern in Babylon, they were in a forest clearing. Jamie could hear laughter from somewhere close by, followed by a series of soft tapping sounds. Wondering if he should stay with Jack, Jamie got the sense that this forest wasn't the kind to harbor any serious dangers, and he moved toward the source of laughter, wanting to find out where he and Jack had ended up. He didn't have to go very far. In the next clearing, Jamie saw two flowering cherry trees playing Ping-Pong, hitting a small stone back and forth across a wide, fat boulder. One of the trees was using a silver spatula for a paddle; the one had nearly hit Jamie in the face back in his attic.

"Spatula!" Jamie instantly wished he hadn't said anything, clapping a hand over his mouth. The small stone/Ping-Pong ball fell to the ground, rolling to a stop at Jamie's feet. Then, as he looked at the trees with what he hoped was an apologetic smile, he realized that it hadn't been the trees laughing; it was an old man, who materialized out of thin air in the middle of the grove. He was wearing a blue pointed wizard's hat and flowing purple robes that all culminated in having a strangely intimidating effect on Jamie that had nothing to do with the clothing’s color. 

With his eyes trained on the wizard, Jamie took a step back onto a twig. There was a high-pitched scream and the wizard's eyes snapped open. There were literal sparks shooting from the wizard’s eyes, one of which was orange and the other purple. _‘Could this day get any weirder?’_ Jamie thought to himself.

"Intruder!" the wizard bellowed. A staff made of rubies materialized in his right hand and the wizard flew toward Jamie, stopping inches from his face. "How dare you step on Twig! How would you like it if you were stepped on? I bet you wouldn't!"

"I don't know what you're talking about! I don't know any twigs— and NO, I wouldn't like being stepped on! I'm sorry for whatever I did." Jamie protested, holding his hands up defensively in front of his face. The wizard was getting uncomfortably close, and his intense sparking gaze was rather unnerving.

"Yes, you do know what I'm talking about, intruder! You're stepping on her. You should be ashamed of yourself!" The wizard yelled, sending some spittle flying. "Now... How shall we get rid of you? Because, I'm sure as you can understand, we can't have intruders ruining the place."

The two cherry saplings agreed with the wizard in unison. "Yeah, watch your step. And get off of Twig!"

"I still don't know who Twig is," Jamie protested weakly, trying to back away from the wizard.

"It's ME!" A small voice coming from somewhere on the ground startled Jami so much he almost trip backward over a small stone. When he looked down, he finally realized who "Twig" was, for a small twig with a tiny pink bow on, was smiling sweetly up at him.

"Oh my god! I’m so sorry, I did NOT mean to step on you!" He quickly apologized, stumbling backward in his haste to get away from the talking twig he’d evidently hurt.

Twig was broken in half; each of the two sections was about three inches long.

"I TOLD you," The wizard said, crossing his arms.

Jamie was about to reassure the wizard that he probably heal Twig with the magic he’d accidentally gained the last time he and Jack went through an attic portal, when an icicle suddenly flew over his shoulder toward the wizard.

The wizard ducked and the icicle narrowly missed him, crashing instead into ground next to the cherry sapling holding the spatula.

"Hey, how about you stop threatening my friend?" Jack's voice was their only warning a moment before he dropped into the center of the grove. With a blast of blue light, ice and snow covered everything around them.

"Oh great! There are two of you." The wizard muttered.

Walking on its roots, the cherry sapling with the spatula tripped over its roots when the ground became icy smooth. The spatula flew out its branches. Jack caught it in mid-air.

"Thanks!" Jack said to the sapling. "This is really all we came for so we'll be leaving now. Sorry about the ice."

The wizard fumed, getting angrier with every word that came out of Jack's mouth.

"Wait!" Jamie protested, turning to the wizard. "I'm sorry, my friend has a talent for dramatic entrances. I may be able to heal Twig; I can try, if you want. And then we'll be on our way, I promise." The wizard did not reply, but motioned with his staff toward Twig, lying on the ground. It was clear that he was waiting for her to be healed.

When Jamie bent down to examine Twig, Jack joined him. "A talent for dramatic entrances?" The Guardian whispered, raising an eyebrow. "I would've thought North, or Pitch, would qualify for that one more than me."

"Sorry," Jamie whispered back. "But that wizard was probably going to turn you into a toad and banish you to outer space if I hadn't said something."

"Fair enough. I don’t think I want to be a toad. Now let's see you work your magic." Jack gave him a small smile.

Jamie nodded, then took a deep breath and said to Twig, "I'm sorry I stepped on you. Would it be okay if I tried healing you with magic?"

"Yes, I would very much like to be healed." she replied.

"But...did it hurt you a lot?" Jamie asked, sincerely hoping that since she was a twig and didn't have nerves like humans and animals do, he hadn't caused her much pain.

Twig rolled from side to side, as if she were shaking her head. "No." she answered.

Raising his hand over Twig, Jamie focused the sun's energy onto her. He closed his eyes, and in a flash of golden light, Twig was made whole again. Behind them, the wizard huffed somewhat approvingly, conceding that at least one of the intruding humans had some redeeming features.

"Great job. Can we go now before anything else happens?" Jack asked. "And for interest's sake, where the heck are we, anyway?"

"Why you little impertinent-" The wizard sputtered angrily. "You storm in here, frost my grove, and then you dare to ask me where you are? It's Atlantis! Now get out! OUT WITH YOU, I SAY! Before you cause more damage here!" He pointed a finger over Jack's shoulder, and the Guardian of Fun felt a strong force begin pushing him backwards. Jamie covered his face with his hand as he thought, _'First Babylon, now Atlantis. What's next? Neptune?_ ' Immediately, he wished he hadn't thought of Neptune.

A time portal appeared, and they heard the now-familiar whispers of the Ocean of Time being stirred. The world of Atlantis and the wizard's magical grove disappeared as Jack, Jamie, and Twig were whisked off into yet another time.


	3. The Terror of Tribbles

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here is the one crossover chapter with appearances from characters from the newer Star Trek movies, because Chris Pine…
> 
> IMPORTANT chapter context: The Guardians met the some of the crew of the USS Enterprise the previous Christmas due to time-travel shenanigans that occured at the North Pole. The main members of the crew were given a mysterious magical potion that enabled them to see the Guardians. 
> 
> *Includes mentions and situation involving drinking/alcohol (with little regard for what situation might realistically look like...)

**_[Time: Unknown…Location: USS Enterprise]_ **

****

"Space, ze final... Ze finale of frontiers! These voyages of the starship Enterprise! Her mission...to explode…" A slurred voice faded in and out, as the speaker's numerous drinks finally caught up to them. There was a crash from outside the med-bay's door, and then...

"Damnit Jim! I told you to not spike the eggnog!"

"It WASN'T ME, Bones! How many times do I have to say it!?"

Jack and Jamie woke up to the sound of another large crash. Jamie sat up slowly, realizing he was on a hospital bed in what appeared to be a medical ward, and the Guardian of Fun was on the bed beside him.

"What was that?" Jack mouthed at him, also sitting up.

"Dunno," Jamie whispered. "But it sounds bad."

"Hey! Hello?"

Jamie looked around trying to locate the source of the small voice.

"Down here!"

It sounded like Twig. Finally, Jamie looked down over the side of the bed to see Twig balancing gracefully on end on the floor. She was smiling up at him. He got off the bed and gently picked her up. Her pink bow was slightly askew, and with his index finger, Jamie straightened it.

"Wait a minute." Jack said, slowly looking around the medical bay as he walked over to Jamie. "Are we...where I think we are?"

"Possibly. I'm 89% sure." Jamie bit his bottom lip with uncertainty. There was a loud 'clang' from outside the medical bay door, and a few seconds later the ship's klaxon alarms went off.

"To all personnel, this is your Captain speaking. I think this prank war is starting to get seriously out of hand, so I'm ordering a temporary ceasefire that is to go into effect immediately, until the missing tribble is caught. Thank you."

"Speaking of where I think we are,” muttered Jack. The announcement had confirmed their suspicions; they were indeed aboard the USS Enterprise. Jack had recognized the voice making the announcement within a few moments.

"We just went from Atlantis to the Enterprise." Jamie said, more than a little surprised.

"No one ever said it was _impossible_." Jack replied with a sigh, somewhat pointedly. Even the Guardian of Fun could not believe where they had ended up.

The doors slid open then, and a small brown ball of fur, a tribble, inched its way into the room. A crash resounded from the corridor and a somewhat inebriated Lt. Chekov dove through the doorway and landed on the tribble.

The disheveled young weapons engineer sat up, hugging the tribble close to his chest. With a slurred Russian accent, Chekov announced, "You won't get away this time, Rimsky!"

Jack and Jamie exchanged glances. "Rimsky?" Jamie asked.

"I think that's a Russian composer, Nikolai Rimsky Korsakov. North mentioned him a couple of times,” whispered Jack. The tribble began purring incessantly. Chekov, oblivious of the presence of Jack and Jamie, began rocking the tribble while singing "Rock-a-bye Baby" horribly off tune.

A moment later, Captain Kirk followed by Spock, Uhura, Sulu, Scotty, and Bones stumbled into the med bay, laughing. Finally, Jamie asked, "What is going on here? The laughter faded as the surprised group came to a standstill.

"Um…well," Kirk began to answer, but then changed his mind. "Actually, I don't want to know what you guys are doing here. We had to get Chekov to the med bay somehow and the tribble was obviously a way since he's in love with the little menace."

Bones and Uhura had managed to coax Chekov into standing, and led him to one of the beds. With the promise of a bedtime story if he complied with their requests, Chekov snuggled under the thin blanket Uhura lay over him, hugging the purring tribble to his chest the entire time. He was asleep almost as soon as his head hit the pillow.

"I really wish that I had a camera right now," muttered Kirk under his breath.

"That," Jamie said, pointing the spatula at Jack, "is his line."

"Alright, everybody out! Thank you for helping me collect my patient. Now if you'd kindly return to your stations without injuring yourselves, that would be much appreciated. I don't want any more patients in here – or so help me," Bones threatened them with a ridiculously large hypo-spray. And with that, he plucked the tribble from Chekov's hands, handed it to a bewildered Jack, and herded everyone out of the room.

When they were a safe distance away from Bones and his hypo-sprays, Kirk decided that he'd go with Scotty to Engineering to investigate a ship-wide heating issue (no doubt caused by another prank.) The rest of the crew returned to the Bridge.

Jack and Jamie followed Kirk and Scotty down to Engineering. On the way there, Jamie tugged on Jack's sleeve, stopping him in his tracks. "What?" Jack asked. Jamie frantically scanned the walkway, "The tribble! Jack, what happened to the tribble?" They both looked around in horror but the tribble was nowhere in sight.

With a strained expression, Scotty immediately appeared at their side. "The tribble? Missing?! Ach! Does this always have to happen? Captain, can you order a lock-down on Engineering for me? We need to catch that tribble before it damages anything, like our warp core or life support systems for example!”

"Affirmative, Scotty. Already done," Kirk assured his agitated friend. The young Captain was trying to take this predicament seriously but the Jack Frost-like smile flickering across his face betrayed his amusement.

Jamie gasped as he noticed one more issue: the only thing left of the spatula that he'd been holding the entire time was the metal handle.

Jack, also noticing this, commented wryly, "Well, that's a bit concerning. I wasn't aware that tribbles ate metal."

A loud rumble startled them, as the lockdown went into effect and every door in Engineering slid shut and locked into place. Splitting up to cover more ground, they began searching for the tribble with a few of the engineers. After twenty minutes, everyone regrouped near the warp core. There had been no sign of the tribble.

Then, out of nowhere, Kirk was charged at and nearly knocked over by a silver fuzz-ball the size of a beagle that was moving at an exceptional speed— for a tribble. As it ran by, the tribble bit Kirk's left ankle with its tiny fangs. Surprised, Jack jerked away from the aggressive creature as it changed direction and ran towards him. He almost tripped fell back over a nearby computer console in his haste, but quickly caught himself on a weak flow of air.

One of the engineers started to run out of the room in fright.

"Jack!" Jamie cried out as he ran to the railing and looked down. Jack's reply that he was fine was lost in Scotty's angry shout, "Get that bloody thing off my ship this instant! And you—" pointing in the direction of his runway engineer, "Get yer arse back here and help!"

Meanwhile, the tribble was racing gleefully back and form across the room surrounding the warp core, triumphantly attempting to trample Kirk a little more on every pass. The captain pretended to be unconscious in an attempt to make the tribble think it'd been victorious in taking down a human, which it took an alarming amount of joy in doing. Eventually, as the tribble stopped to sniff Kirk's hand, he rolled over and pinned the it beneath him. It squirmed and squealed loudly.

"You're hurting it!" Jamie exclaimed.

Standing up and holding the tribble out in front of him, Kirk replied that the tribble had blood from a super-human in it from one of Bones’s experiments; he tribble was not about to be injured any time soon, although its hacking cough spewed out a thin piece of metal. Still holding the handle, Jamie recognized the projectile as part of the missing flat-blade of the spatula.

"I think the tribble must be a chameleon," Twig commented from the pocket of Jamie’s jeans. "Its color changed from green to silver when it ate the spatula."

"Fascinating, as I believe Spock might say. Although, I'm actually just really confused about why this is all happening." Jamie replied.

"Life is mysterious, Jamie." Twig said, her tone sage-like.

“Prank war got really outta hand.” Scotty answered gruffly.

Behind Jamie came the familiar sound of a time portal opening. "Not again!" He heard Jack groan. In a flash of white light, the Enterprise and her crew disappeared from sight.


	4. The Joys of Being Human

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading. I hope this story brought you some joy and laughs!

**_[Time: 5:40pm…Location: Jamie’s Attic]_ **

The attic gradually materialized around them out of the warping time and space within the portal. For once, they were not catapulted out of it, but were instead gently set down on the attic floor. The time portal was gone, no longer a shimmering mirage on the wall.

"Well, that was fun," Jack broke the silence. "At least we weren't knocked out this time."

Jamie silently did a head-count. _'One stainless steel spatula, me, one Jack Frost, one Twig, with her little pink bow, one lime green tribble, and—oh no.'_

"Jack...uh, we—well, you—" He didn't know how to phrase it, so he simply pointed to Jack's hood, and said what he needed to say in the least alarming way possible. "We picked up an unwanted addition."

There it was, dangling off of Jack's hood by its teeth. The beagle-sized tribble.

Dropping his staff in panic, Jack twisted around in circles as he tried unsuccessfully to free himself of the tribble. Jamie looked around for some way to help, and noticed the Bennett family tree book across the attic from him. It was big and relatively heavy. And it had swallowed up that flaming arrow, hadn't it? Maybe it could swallow the tribble too.

"What should we do?" Twig asked from the floor. Jamie picked her up and leaned her against a cardboard box behind him.

"I have an idea." He replied, turning back around to stare intently at the family tree book. Jamie help out his hands and made a ‘come here’ motion with his hands. The book flew across the room into his grasp.

"Jack, stop moving." Jamie said watching the tribble swing this way and that with Jack's jerky movements.

Jack would have goggled at him had he not been trying to pull off his hoodie. It was not so simple, as just when he was about to pull it over his head, the tribble would dig its claws into his back, and in doing so, force the winter spirit to resort to trying to shake it off. He did this by spinning in various directions, but the tribble was hanging on with all its might. It even seemed to be growling. "Does it look like I can stop moving, Jamie? It's going to bite my arm off, or paralyze me with its venom as it sinks its teeth into my neck!"

"It doesn't have venom," Jamie protested.

"It came from the _Enterprise_! It could!"

Jamie had been observing the tribble at close range for more than a minute now, and he doubted that it was poisonous. It seemed to be behaving almost like an untrained puppy, thinking that Jack's hood was a toy, and the two of them were just playing a game. And Jamie certainly didn't want to hurt anything like a puppy. Then there was a small flash of light at Jamie's feet. Five pieces of chocolate appeared there, each wrapped in a different-colored foil. The blue one said 'Jack' on it, in gold swirly font. The bronze one said 'Diane', and the purple one said 'Sophie'. Jamie's was gold, and his name was written in white. But it was the fifth piece of chocolate that caught the 12 year-old believer's attention. It was wrapped in green foil, and 'TRIBBLE' was printed on it in silver, capital letters. Realizing what that meant, Jamie lay aside then family tree book and picked up the chocolate for the tribble quickly unwrapping it.

"Jack, would you _please_ stop moving? I have an idea how to get it off." He said, trying to sound assuring.

Jack faced him triumphantly, holding his blue hoodie out in front of him like a trophy. Beneath the hoodie, he was wearing a plain white t-shirt.( Jamie found it strange to see Jack without his hoodie; it was like Superman without his cape.)

"Ok, let's see if this works." Jamie approached the tribble, and bent down to be at eye level with it. He held the chocolate up to what he hoped was close to its mouth. The tribble stopped growling, and began to purr. Jamie slowly set the chocolate on the floor, and the tribble's grip on the hoodie loosened.

"Come on, Jamie coaxed softly, "You know you want it."

The tribble eventually decided that Jamie was right; the chocolate was more appealing than Jack's hoodie. Dropping to the floor with a loud 'thump', it started purring loudly, apparently content, as it began to eat the chocolate. Jamie looked up at Jack, and saw that like himself, the winter spirit was on the verge of laughing at the absolute strange series of events that had led them to this moment.

Their laughter brought Diane up to the attic, having just returned from taking Sophie to her play date.

"What is that?" Diane stopped at the top of the ladder, staring in bewilderment at the tribble, which now chocolate brown instead of lime green.

"It's...definitely not a tribble." Jack said, very seriously. His act held up for about five seconds, before he burst into a new round of laughter. Jamie gathered up the remaining pieces of chocolate and handed the one with his mom's name on it to her.

"Really?" Diane asked, accepting the chocolate with a mildly surprised expression. She had been around Jack Frost and time portals for long enough that few things could phase her now. She glanced over to the wall were the time portal had been. "I see the portal's gone. I had to run some errands after I took Sophie to her playdate and they took a lot longer than I thought." She said.

"Yep, portal’s gone." Jamie confirmed. He handed Jack the chocolate wrapped in blue foil. His mother suddenly tilted her head slightly to one side, looking from Jack to Jamie suspiciously.

"Is there something I should know?" She asked them.

"Um, it's kind of hard to explain..." Jamie struggled to put their adventure into words.

"No rush, I'm all ears."

"It's a long story." Jack added.

"Well, then you better get started." Diane went over to the tribble, picked it up and began petting it as she sat down on an old bedside table stored in the attic that had belonged to her grandmother.

Realizing that Diane meant to stay there until they told her what had happened, Jack, Jamie, and Twig launched into telling the tale of their most recent time travel adventure.

Afterward, Jamie and Jack finally got to eat their chocolate, sitting on the couch by the Christmas tree in the Bennetts' living room. "I wonder where they came from." Jamie said, examining the wrappers. Jack shrugged, wondering the same thing. "Hey, look!" The 12-year-old pointed to the quotes on the inside of the wrappers, holding them up so that both of them could see.

Jack's quote was _"Deep Peace to You",_ and Jamie's quote was _"Joy to the World"_. And in the bottom right corner, almost to small to read were the words "Enjoy! The Man in the Moon".

"Of course it was MiM. All those times I felt like we were being watched when a time portal appeared. Maybe he was reminding us that just because we don't know what something is or why it is where it is, that doesn't mean you have to fear it." Jack said, relieved and a little exasperated at the whole situation as he gazed out the window at the stars sparkling in the night sky. The Moon wasn't visible yet, but it was past twilight now. The Moon would rise soon enough.

"So all that stress over disrupting the past with a spatula..." Jamie started to say. 

Looking over at the believer, Jack smiled and quickly reassured him, "I don't really know why MiM did this, but he must have had his reasons. And think about it this way, NOW you have some cool magic powers AND we know there are chocolate factories on the Moon. That could be very useful information in the future."

Jamie grinned back. "You know what," he said finally, "I think you may be right. Besides, I've always wanted to go to the Moon."

"Maybe we should go next Christmas?"

"Or next week."

"Works for me. I'm ahead of schedule this Winter."

Suddenly, Diane hurried into the living room looking a bit flustered. "Have either of you seen the tribble?" She asked.

**The End (for now)**


End file.
